Morocco goes mobile

FOUR decades after independence, 80% of Morocco's villages and half its population have yet to get paved roads, electricity and running water. But at least the country's peasants can now get mobile phones.

Morocco is claiming the fastest mobile phone growth in the world—albeit from a low base. The number of subscribers in the country has quadrupled in six months to 800,000. By the end of the year, the state regulator, ANRT, expects mobile connections to exceed the number of landlines.

The boom is helping Morocco leap-frog generations of development. While fixed lines cover 6% of the population, the mobile network covers 85%. The new mobile phone operator, Meditel, a Spanish-led group, was up and running within nine months of winning the tender last year. Three satellite operators, who were awarded their VSAT licences this month, hope to have their networks operating within just a few weeks.

In a hierarchical kingdom in which the state controls everything from the airwaves to babies' names, such liberalisation is startling. It stems from a law in 1997 which bust Maroc Telecom's monopoly. ANRT plans to break its hold on landlines by 2002. Investors say the speed and transparency of Morocco's telecom reforms are unparalleled in the Arab world.

The government's need for cash is driving the liberalisation. Last summer, Morocco confounded economists when the government earned $1.1 billion from the sale of a second GSM licence to Meditel—double the amount Egypt, with twice the population, earned from a similar sale. VSAT licences are fetching $4m a piece. Later this summer, the partial privatisation of Maroc Telecom is earmarked to bring another $1.5 billion into state coffers. The sale is attracting bids from as far afield as Italy and Indonesia.

The reforms are winning Morocco the regional edge. Across the continent, only South Africa and Egypt have a higher mobile phone penetration. While security-obsessed Tunisia and Algeria still struggle with a single low-capacity GSM network, Morocco is planning its third. Tunisia was the first country in Africa to market the Internet, and helped launch the web in Morocco. Today Tunisia has two Internet providers, one owned by the president's daughter, the other by a close relation, and Morocco has hundreds. Investors now talk of turning Morocco into a regional hub.

In a heavily regulated region, Morocco's telecom sector has become a pilot for a new way of administration. The regulator, not the Ministry of Telecommunications, is in charge, and acts as an independent arbitrator. Tariffs tumble, as Moroccans get a taste of corporate competition. The World Bank hopes this new way of doing things will be contagious: if it works in telecoms, it might also succeed in transport. There has even been talk of liberalising radio and television. Who knows where it all might end?